McLorenz
Introduction
Greetings fellow reader,
My name is Mc Lorenz I'm 21 years old and I am a Filipino born Canadian. I was born Montreal, but moved to California when I was about 1. I grew up there and had my first couple years of education there, I came back here in 2006-07 when I was about 8 years old. I had to learn French due to Quebec law and developed a love-hate relationship. I hate how complicated it is, yet love its complexity.
I remember when I fell in love with the idea of learning a second language thanks to a specific video game called Call of Duty: Finest Hour. I vividly remember playing as a soldier trying to sabotage a German supply depot, when a friendly soldier picked up the radio and spoke German to deceive the enemy. I then understood how much language is important when communicating and how much we take it for granted.
My other passion is music, to which I listen to anything and everything (except Country, because who does?) from wherever in the world. My top 5 bands/artists in no particular order are: Radiohead, Led Zeppelin, Chet Baker, Offonoff and lofi hip hop radio - beats to relax/study to.
My fascination about languages is how other cultures influences language. More specifically, how it affects modern-day slang and how the youth use it. My research will be based on how the internet language influences and affects the language used today. I chose this topic because it is how our generation communicates with each other. Our generation is the first to use social media as a means to share information and will be the pioneers of internet communication for the future.
Entry 1
1) Memes as Speech Acts
[Abstract]
Memes are a common way for individuals to communicate online. Internet users often use memes to reply to each other on social networking sites or other online forums. This research argues that memes are successfully used for communication purposes because certain memes (specifically image macros) are essentially speech acts and are also understood as being speech acts by internet users. When creating a meme, choices are made concerning the specific semiotic resources to be used and the internet community then interprets these resources to facilitate communication between the meme creator and the internet community. Memes can be recreated for different purposes and therefore it is possible to group memes under already existing speech acts and speculate about the ways in which these might correspond to speech acts in the future. To accomplish this, a limited amount of specific meme types are analysed and discussed.
This text elaborates on what memes are, the fundamental ideas of the study of memes (memetics) and how it affects our spoken language. It delves into question how much context we need to understand memes and how much of a visual language it is since it depends on an image or picture. There are multiple types of memes such as an "image macro meme" which consists of an image with text below and above describing a feeling or a thought.
This text also talks about the functions and interpretations of memes. Such as sarcasm and "edgy" humor which might not connect with some people because they haven't been exposed to it.
In conclusion, this text is really informative and a good introduction as to what I will be presenting on.
Entry 2
2) Emojis and the Law
This text explains what emojis are, how they are used and the legal repercussions of emojis in the court of law. To start off, the word 'emoji' comes from Japanese which means "picture character". Why write words when a picture is worth a thousand words? The emojis express so much more than just words. Emojis and emoticons are not the same. Emoticon is a portmanteau of the words 'emotion' and 'icon'. the difference being that emoticons are typed out and do not create an image, such as "XD" and " :) ". Even though both they both express ideas and emotions, they make different images.
There are also different emoji dialects as explained in the text, because of the reach of the internet. Countries all over the world use emojis, but every emoji has a different meaning in other countries, due to the culturally different metonyms. For example how the 'eggplant' emoji in the West can be a metonym for a phallus or how the 'peach' emoji can be referred to a butt. All of these differences make international communication with emojis difficult if one does not understand, nor know about the cultural importance of an image.
Furthermore, this text also talks about the discrepancies between the emojis, how Apple's emojis are different from Android's, the legal and technical differences between emojis and finally, copyright laws on emojis. The law has multiple paths on the subject of emojis. There are discussions whether they can be used as evidence, however, they could be misinterpreted and change the course of a verdict. There is also how the programming of the emojis and how can we be sure that we sent the 'correct' emoji and not just a entirely different emoji.
How emojis can be used as in a reply.
Entry 3
3) How the Internet Changed Language-for the Better
In this blog article by the Ringer, the subject matter is about how internet language is not a detriment to the English language, but rather the opposite. The way we write on the internet needs to be different from how we write formally, to distinguish the differences between sarcasm, jokes and authentic answers. This is where punctuation and capital and lower case letters matter. For example, we all know when we read a message in all caps, when read the message in a shouting voice to emphasize the importance of the message, but nowadays we use both lower case and capital letters in a word to imitate sarcasm, which was famously made by the mocking SpongeBob meme.
We also reply with emojis and acronyms, to shorten our answers. "In short, the way we write online isn’t lazy, it’s creative." is what the author thinks about our internet slang. The author refers a lot to a book written by Gretchen McCulloch, a Montreal native, who graduated from McGill University. In her book Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language, she talks about how internet language changes the rules of English, implementing new emerging words and the internet syntactic rules, affecting the language.
Entry 4
4) A guide to Understanding Twitch Emotes
As a gamer, there are new terms made by gamers in the community. There are online streamers on Twitch that use specific emotes to describe reactions to specific situations. Emotes such as a funny situation, feeling sad, or happy, describing amazement, etc.
These emotes are used outside of the Twitch community, such as other websites such as Reddit and 4chan. The most famous Twitch emotes and meanings can be found in this article made by Polygon a website about video game news.
I must confess that I use these Twitch emotes in real life describe situations and reactions. I don't particularly enjoy using it, but I am so embedded into the community that it has influenced my spoken language.
Entry 5
5) Reddit Glossary
As an internet user, one of the most renowned is Reddit, a forum where internet users ask other users opinions about specific situations. Many new acronyms are made by the community which can be used as a reply or as a subreddit.
These acronyms show how much the internet language reduces language to its most basic form, morphemes into syllables, creating new words, phrases and ideas. Acronyms such as:
- IANAL: I Am Not A Lawyer
- TIFU: Today I F*cked Up
- AITA: Am I The A**hole
- TL;DR: Too Long; Didn't Read
- AMA: Ask Me Anything
Many other acronyms can be found and explained by the Reddit community in the link above.
Entry 6
6) Waking up as a meme-hero | Andras Arato | TEDxKyiv
This video is about the Andras Arato, more famously known as the guy portraying "Hide the Pain Harold". He is easily recognized as one of the famous people on the internet, with only the numerous amount of stock photo memes with his "hidden pain smile."
This video is about him and how he became famous overnight in the internet culture and his thoughts about being an internet meme.
What I took from the video is that the internet culture takes things for granted and we forget that people in stock images, that are later used as memes, are jokes for the internet community. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the internet has desensitized us and makes us forget our compassion when we look at things through a monitor. Before this video, I didn't really thought about the people in memes, I always associated their faces to humor and not as a person. I also don't know how the future generations are going to react with people within memes, will they treat them as a celebrity or as a persona of a meme.
Entry 7
7) Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language
This book was written by Gretchen McCulloch a linguist who specializes with the language used by internet users. This is the book that was mentioned in my entry number 3. This book explains and shows how much the internet affects our language today. From the usage of acronyms, memes, emojis, etc., basically every method used by internet users, to convey ideas or communicating with each other. She talks about the history of the internet and how communicating changed with the advancements of technology and the modernization of language. How language "updated" itself every year, with the usage of more images and less words.
This book summarizes most of my prior entries into one. This focuses more on the linguistic aspect of our usage, but is written in a more relatable and not as boring as you would think. It really goes in to depth about some aspects of our internet language. The usage of more visual cues such as memes, emojis or gifs, don't impede our writing skills, it shows how much more creative we are to communicate with less words. However, this does put into perspective how many words we acronym and shorten, I do believe that it does entice us to make more orthographical mistakes than we would believe. When we type on our phones and on our computers, we rely too much on auto-correct, causing us to make more mistakes when writing by hand.
This is a must read book if ever you are interested in how we use language differently on the internet. It really puts into perspective our society and how it brings changes to our modern language.
Here is an article written by La Presse de Montréal about the slang we Montrealers use and where there origins are from.
Need help catching up with a slang word you've never heard of? This website will help. Disclaimer: Beware the internet trolls. Seriously, look up the word "pineapple".